


Epilogue

by mahoni



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 1000-5000 Words, Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-21
Updated: 2007-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-03 07:30:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahoni/pseuds/mahoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath of an ambush.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epilogue

One of Keller's minions walked John through the gate with the intention of getting him to the infirmary to look him over, but then Captain Dulles came through on a stretcher and started hemorrhaging, or flat-lining. Or possibly both.

"Get your ass down to the infirmary, Colonel, do you understand me?" Dr. Milligen snapped as she ran off to help.

John nodded dutifully, but stood for a moment instead, watching Rodney shout directions to the techs and Marines carrying equipment through the gate. They were trying to salvage Dr. Sandburg's work, which John was sure Dr. Sandburg was going to appreciate if he ever woke up.

Watching Rodney run around, clean and whole, completely undamaged, was a little surreal. In the past howevermany hours of chaos, John hadn't had a chance to consider that it could have been his own team there with him. He'd tagged along on a whim by himself, because a tropical paradise was always worth checking out; but they could all just as easily have been assigned the mission. It hit him now, and he wasn't really sure what he thought about it. The only thing that came to mind was _thank god_, but that seemed like a very wrong thing to be thinking.

"Doc check you out yet?"

John blinked up at Ronon. _Clean, whole, undamaged. Alive._ "Aren't you supposed to be back on the planet with Teyla and Lorne, dealing with the locals?"

Not that, at this point, there were many locals to deal with. A few had been captured - they were part of the second wave of the seige, the ones who would have finished the slaughter their dead kinsmen had begun if the pair of jumpers hadn't suddenly decloaked and disgorged a dozen of Atlantis' people with stunners and P90s and itchy trigger fingers.

But the prisoners were mostly unconscious. All there really was to do now was keep an eye on them and zap any who came to while the remaining dead and injured from Commander Voight's and Dr. Sandburg's teams were evacuated.

Ronon was looking at John like he knew that, and he knew John knew it, and since they both knew it he wasn't going to let John distract him from his original question.

"I'm fine," John said. "Keller's got her hands full right now anyway."

"Meaning no, you haven't been checked out yet."

"Like I said, Keller's got her hands full right now." John scrubbed a hand over his face; it came away sticky with blood and gritty with sand. He moved to wipe it off on his shirt, and then his pants, but he couldn't find a clean spot. No surprise, since people had been dying all over him all day. Hell with the infirmary; first thing he was going to do was change his clothes and take a bath. And then get some food. And sleep. All he had were a few cuts and bruises, anyway.

Ronon was still looking at him, and it occurred to John that Ronon was probably here because Teyla had sent him to make sure John didn't, oh, maybe skip going to the infirmary in favor of taking a bath and eating and then going straight to bed...

"Fine," he said. "I'll go down and get checked out."

Of course Ronon followed him. He guided John out of the gate room and down the hall, directing him with a light hand on his shoulder like he was a child who might try to run off. John didn't have the energy to tell him to knock it off, and just let himself be nudged along.

"Didn't the survey team say the planet was uninhabited?" Ronon asked.

"They were wrong." John had been wondering about that. He'd mostly been wondering what to do to the survey team if they couldn't come up with a damn good reason for the mistake. When the attack first happened, he had considered a formal reprimand, but by now he was thinking something more medieval was called for. Drawing and quartering, maybe. He could use the puddlejumpers -

"When we came through the gate, and saw all of those bodies, all over the beach," Ronon said, then paused. They reached a transporter; he waved it open and his hand on John's back ushered him inside.

John wondered what the beach must have looked like from the air. A lot of blood, a lot of primitive weapons, and a couple of very still figures dressed all in black in a sea of mostly-naked locals. He made a non-committal noise as Ronon keyed in their destination and the transporter flashed.

John was running purely on adrenaline fumes by that point, which was probably why he thought he could actually feel it when he dissolved from one transporter to the other. The sensation shivered through him like a microburst of numbness, and his legs started to buckle. He caught himself on the wall just as Ronon's hand fisted in his vest and yanked him back up.

"I'm fine," he said automatically, but he took a moment to steady himself. Finally he tried to push past to wave open the door, but Ronon still had a hold of him.

He wasn't sure if he actually stumbled or if for some reason Ronon just thought he was going to fall again, but the next thing he knew he was thudding up against Ronon's chest. Ronon's arms wrapped around him, warm, solid, almost like a hug.

Suddenly off balance, he grabbed back. For a frozen moment, he was leaning against Ronon, held up by him and holding onto him. He started to push away reflexively, but Ronon had a pretty good grip on him. His face was partially buried in Ronon's shoulder; up to that point the heady scent of alien vegetation and the tang of blood had preoccupied his sense of smell, but Ronon's scent cut through it abruptly. He didn't smell like anything in particular, either, he just smelled...clean.

_Undamaged; alive._

Jesus God, he hoped Dulles and Sandburg were going to make it.

He took a deep breath and when he blew it out the last of his adrenaline went with it, leaving him feeling bone-weary.

"Okay," he said finally. His voice was an incoherent mumble, so he lifted his head a little and said, "I think I'm okay now. You can let me go."

A second or two passed, and just when he decided that maybe he hadn't said that out loud, Ronon let go and stepped back. He gripped John by the arms for a moment, only releasing him entirely when it was clear John's legs would hold him up.

Ronon's expression was unreadable. He didn't look at John, just turned and waved open the door.

John had been right - Keller and her people had their hands full. A nurse, ducking out of one of the operating rooms with a pan full of bloody instruments, paused when he saw them come in, but John told him he could wait and sank into one of the chairs by the door. The nurse hesitated, and then scurried off.

"You don't have to keep an eye on me any more," he said when Ronon dropped into a chair beside him. He stretched his legs out and wrapped his arms across his chest. "I promise I won't leave until they tell me I can." And that was honest truth; now that he was sitting down, the bonelessness that had started in the transporter was rapidly turning into muscle-lessness, and forecasting conscious-lessness in the near future.

Ronon slouched in his chair and stretched out his legs, too. His feet bumped John's, but he didn't seem to notice. "Think I'll stay."

*


End file.
